Pass
cursor over letters to see enlarged examples taken from the page illustrated
above.

Distinctive
letters
:This Gothic
cursive document hand is very similar to the previous example, being a
somewhat untidy working script
rather than the elegant product of a chancery.
We might call it a French working cursive of the Hundred Years War. (Or
is that gothica cursiva franconia militaria ordinaria? No, don't write
that down, just joking!)

All
ascenders
and descenders
tend to be long, loopy and somewhat angular. The most distinctive letter
is g, which looks like a y with a horizontal slash through the top. On the other hand, q is loopy and looks like a g. The letter j is differentiated from i and is very tall
and extravagant. Both tall and short forms of s are present.

The
letters n, u and v are virtually identical, and along
with i and m,
can form rows of minims
that are difficult to decipher.

There
are no examples of k or w.

The
spelling differs considerably from modern French, and this is made trickier
by the fact that there are no accents or apostrophes.

The
sample is just from the top left of the document, so it is not continuous
text. Pass the cursor along the lines of text slowly to identify some
words. To look at the document in greater detail, go to the paleography
exercises.

If you
are looking at this page without frames, there is more information about
medieval writing to be found by going to the home
page (framed) or the site map
(no frames). This
site is created and maintained by Dr Dianne
Tillotson, freelance researcher and compulsive multimedia and web author.
Comments are welcome. Material on this web site is copyright, but some parts
more so than others. Please check here for
copyright status and usage before you start making free with it. This page
last modified 19/5/2005.